Life of Plotinus

Porphyry · Thomas Taylor

Translated by Stephen MacKenna, 1917 The Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry was born in c. 234 in Tyre, Roman Phoenicia. He wrote original works in Greek on a variety of topics, ranging from music theory to Homer to vegetarianism. His parents named him Malkos (Old Aramaic for ‘king’) though he later changed it to “Basileus” (Ancient Greek for ‘king’). In later days he earned the sobriquet “Porphyrius” (Ancient Greek for ‘clad in purple’). As a youth he travelled to Athens, where he studied grammar and rhetoric under Cassius Longinus, while becoming acquainted with Middle Platonism. In 262 he went to Rome, intrigued by the reputation of Plotinus (c. 204-270 AD), a Hellenistic Platonist philosopher, born and raised in Roman Egypt. Plotinus is regarded by modern scholarship as the founder of Neoplatonism. Historians of the nineteenth century invented the term “neoplatonism”, applying it to …

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